How Fires Are Kindled
° While I was musing the fire burned.” — Psatm xxxix. 3.
HIs is how every sort of spiritual fire is kindled. IfImayso-put.it, Pith comes by musing. It may be a clean fire, pure and brilliant as a flame of oxygen. Or it may be a dirty fire, like one which blackens a whole landscape and throws a pall over a hundred homes. Whether it be one or the other the kindling comes of musing. We think about things and fires are lit. It is as though the mysterious friction in the exercise and process of the mind creates a spark, and inflammatory things catch fire. Thought is creative of mood. Thinking generates feeling. As soon as thought becomes active, tempers begin to stir in their sleep, and they get out of their beds in vigorous life. We simply cannot help it. It is the ordered succession in the constitution of things. This is how the heats of life are born, whether they be perilous heats, pregnant with destruction, or genial heats, as friendly as is the spring sunshine to the sleeping wealth of the garden.) 7?, What sort of fire is this which the Psalmist has been kindling? Some stroke has fallen upon him, and his life is impoverished. We have no details of his calamity to guide our imagination. Perhaps his strength has been smitten, and whereas he has hitherto grasped his tasks with the grip of an athlete he now handles them with the feeble touch of an invalid. Perhaps some fair family union has been shattered by the rude and sudden entry of death. At any rate, whatever it be, the harmony of his life has been broken, and everything is in confusion. He makes up his distressed mind about one thing. He will control his spirit. He will not break loose into blasphemy. And, especially, he will not utter faithless words when the wicked are before him. He wil not give them the opportunity for impious laughter. He will not fiJl his ways with loud murmurings and complaints. Such were the vows he made to himself concerning his speech. But while he sought to control his words he did not put the same leash upon his thoughts. While he did little speaking he did much thinking. He nursed his deprivation. He dwelt upon it. His thought played round about it until the deprivation began to assume the form of a wrong. His affliction stood up before him as an outrage. He mused and mused over it, and his thought was both spark and fuel to his moods. And at length, in spite of his vows, the fire broke out like volcanic flames from central depths. He filled the air with repining. His roads were strident with his complaints. No matter who or what was his audience he let himself go. Let anyone read the whole of the psalm, and then turn from its feverish heat to the cool and noble equanimity of the last chapter of Habakkuk, and he will be fully conscious what sort of fire can be set a-blazing when a man’s thought is moodily concentrated upon his afflictions. Concentrated thought is like sunshine gathered and focussed through a lens — the heat sets things on fire. “As I mused the fire burned.”?
But, as I fire is kindled in this way. It is even so with the fire of disastrous ambition. You can study the process in the development of the character of Brutus in ‘“Julius Cesar.” You can watch the fire as it kindles. A friendly conspiracy directs his musings. Hints and suggestions are given which lead his thoughts to the imperial crown. Bits of paper are thrown into his chamber window, with single sentences written on them which are full of incitement to his spirit. There are faint or clear instigations in his intercourse with his friends, and they subtly turn his thoughts to Ceesar’s place and Czesar’s crown. And as he muses the fire burns, and a devouring ambition begins to blaze across his being, which transforms all his faculties into the medium of attainment.
It is equally true of the fire of jealousy. Thinking leads to burning. Direct the thought in a certain direction, and let it dwell there, let it peer about in suspecting vigilance and you will soon have a fire. But these are all gloomy and deadly applications of the law. There are bright and positive aspects of it. For instance, it is in this way that the fire of hope is kindled. It is by a certain style of thinking that we generate the hopeful mood. If we firmly set ourselves to be as those who watch for the morning, intensely gazing for signs of coming day, optimistic feelings will begin to burn in our hearts even before the rising sun has tipped the hills with gold. Let anyone read his daily paper with the one purpose of searching for signs of goodness, for the unveiling of truth, for acts of justice, for deeds of mercy, for movements of philanthropy — let him do it for a month, seeking as for hidden treasure, and he will be amazed at his findings. And while his thought is at work his feelings are stirring, his fire is burning, the cold ashes of pessimism begin to glow in cheery and’ radiant hope. As he muses the fire burns.